Ask a Tech Teacherhttp://askatechteacher.com
What tech ed can I help you with?Tue, 26 Sep 2017 17:47:23 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.214754275An Easy, Reliable Way to Check for Plagiarismhttp://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/25/an-easy-reliable-way-to-check-for-plagiarism/
Mon, 25 Sep 2017 09:12:16 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=57240Continue reading »]]>The unauthorized use of another’s creative content has always been a problem but with the growth of the Internet, it’s become epidemic. The prevailing wisdom seems to be:

cc

If it’s online it’s free

This, of course, isn’t true but the rules and laws surrounding plagiarism and copyrights aren’t nearly as well-known as those that deal with, say, driving a car or crossing a street. The Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics surveyed 43,000 high school students and found that:

59% of high school students admitted cheating on a test during the last year. 34% self-reported doing it more than twice.

One out of three high school students admitted that they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment.

Dissuading students from improper use of online materials is a massive effort that few are willing to undertake. Teachers are at ground zero and start with three basic rules:

Are there changes in the writing voice? Does the student sound older than their normal writing style?

Does the font change? Often what is copied is a different font and size. It’s not as easy as it sounds to normalize that.

Does the student write about something they don’t understand or have no reason to know? This can be checked with a few questions by the teacher digging into the topic.

But these are often woefully inadequate and terribly time-consuming. As a result, most educators resort to some sort of automated help. I’ve tried quite a few but a new one that I’m having a lot of success with is called PlagiarismCheck. It’s an online tool that analyzes submittals using a sophisticated algorithm that searches the Internet, compares what it finds to what has been submitted, and provides a report on how likely it is that the document includes plagiarism. Its analysis identifies word/phrase rearrangements, synonymization (replacing words with synonyms), and other attempts to cloak a plagiarized passage. It also looks for paraphrased writing (and ideas) — where a person’s published work was rephrased or synonyms were substituted in hopes of making it different enough from the original to sneak through. That is still illegal and PlagiarismCheck’s algorithms look for it.

PlagiarismCheck’s enrollment plans are based on how many pages can be submitted. Once you exceed the number of pages, simply subscribe to a new pack. They don’t expire; the service is available until you use up your allotment of pages.

How to use it

PlagiarismCheck.org is browser-based so is available anywhere with the Internet. That means you can use it on desktops, laptops, Chromebooks, iOS, and Android devices. All you do is set up an account and upload your submittal of any length into the plagiarism checker field. The site reviews the entry and reports back to you on questionable areas.

Pros

It’s quick to get started, easy to use, and takes only minutes to get a result (of course, that depends upon document length). Because the field will take unlimited text, you can check your work in one entry which is nice if you’re doing it at the last minute.

PlagiarismCheck.org supports .doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf, and .pdf files.

Support is available 24/7 from the site’s personnel.

Notes

There are no education accounts allowing teachers to sign up their students. Most plagiarism checkers don’t offer this but teachers would probably enjoy the ease of having all students in one place and students would love to have schools absorb the costs.

Educational applications

Educational applications of PlagiarismCheck are organic and prescriptive:

Teachers can quickly and automatically review student work for plagiarism.

Students can review their own work prior to submittal to verify that they didn’t inadvertently skip a citation. This is especially important in long research where it’s easy to forget or mix up notes.

When students are required to check for plagiarism, it teaches them the legalities of plagiarism and how to avoid it in the future.

Requiring students to submit creative work with a PlagiarismCheck report satisfies teacher worries that the student misused creative content and the teacher just can’t find it.

I’ve been using this tool for about a month now and have found it to be a reliable plagiarism checker in both my responsibilities as a teacher and a teacher-author. It satisfied both academic and personal requirements, leaving me with the feeling that I have done my best to avoid misusing the creative work of others.

]]>57240A New Typing Website With a Twisthttp://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/22/a-new-typing-website-with-a-twist/
Fri, 22 Sep 2017 15:49:13 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=57231Continue reading »]]>Type Dojo is a new free comprehensive approach to learning keyboarding. The ad- and distraction-free interface provides not only practice drills but quick links to grade-appropriate keyboarding games (including the popular ones from DanceMat Typing). It’s easy to get started and just as easy to use making it the perfect tool for busy teachers and students who have lots to do besides keyboarding.

But in the crowded field of online keyboarding, Type Dojo will become your favorite for one other simple reason: It multitasks. It has tons of wordlists for many subjects so students learn while practicing keyboarding. For example, if you’re working on geography, students can keyboard with the Geography word list or Marzano Science. If you’re studying literacy, use wordlists for Dolch/Fry/Sight words,Compound Words, or Phrases. Activities present as a timed test (between one and five minutes) that are selected by grade and topic. When completed, students get a certificate that can be printed or simply saved in their personal file.

Type Dojo also has a link to KidzType where students can access a wide variety of keyboarding games to mix in with the tests.

How to get started

Type Dojo requires no log-in but you’ll want to register to keep track of the Certificates of Achievement and individual progress through wordlists. Once you register, all you do is click on your profile to get a list of all the completed wordlists or print the certificates.

To get started, simply open the website and login if you have an account. Select the length of time for the test (between one and five minutes), the grade level, and the word list (this changes by grade level but includes subject-specific words, drills, and more). You’ll see an uncluttered easy-to-understand screen that shows what you’re going to type and tracks progress. There’s also a keyboard with the letter highlighted (which can be hidden) and hands with the correct finger selected.

As you type, the program displays speed, WPM, and accuracy. When done, you get a summary of keystrokes, right and wrong keys, error rate, and gross speed:

Pros

As students work, Type Dojo provides skills-based reminders on how to keyboard and why accuracy is important. That makes it a good tool for typists, no matter the grade, who haven’t engaged in a comprehensive typing course before. In fact, each test is prefaced with hints on the correct way to type: Always Sit Straight. Make Sure Monitor Is Right For Your Eyes. Place Hands. Never Look At The Keyboard. These used to be part of most typing programs but many have dropped them.

I have never seen a typing program with such a robust collection of themed word lists by grade. Have you ever found typing drills for Marzano words–by subject and grade? And the word lists are different for each grade. Look at these for 4th, 6th, and 8th grade:

Besides the word lists, there are also traditional rote drills like the middle school lists for Symbols, Numbers, and the Number Pad.

Though all typing is timed, students can use the lists to drill keyboarding skills, paying attention to the timer only for assessment purposes. In this way, the program will alert them when their typing time is up and it’s time to move on.

Notes

I don’t see options for iOS or Android devices because the program is designed to be run from the Internet (which means it’s compatible with PCs, Macs, and Chromebooks). Since few educators teach typing from iPads or smartphones, this likely will not be a hindrance.

Educational applications

There are a lot of ways Type Dojo can fit your class needs:

Students learn to keyboard best when they mix up rote drills, tests, and games. With Type Dojo, students have easy access to all of these.

Because the tests are between one and five minutes, Type Dojo is excellent for warm-ups and exit tickets. Just have students click through to the test you’ve chosen (or they’ve chosen) and the time limit. When finished, they’re ready to move on to the next activity or leave class.

The word lists reinforce learning in many topics much as you would with a vocabulary program (like SpellingVocabularyCity). For example, if you’re working on word study or literacy with 2nd graders, have students select Fry or Dolch Words. They’ll learn while honing typing skills.

One of the word lists is for the quick two- and three-letter words that are automatic for accomplished typists (meaning they don’t need to think to type them). This is a great way for even your fastest typists to increase their speed.

Students earn Certificates based on typing speed and accuracy. These can be used as a class assessment to chronicle student progress.

If you use the same speed test website over and over, this is a nice change for students.

This is the only site I’ve seen with a speed quiz for the ten-key. I’m excited.

Type Dojo has no login, no ads, no distractions, and original content. If you’re looking for a new online keyboarding site that’s free, you’ve just found it.

]]>57231169 Tech Tips: Email from MS Officehttp://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/20/56400/
http://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/20/56400/#respondWed, 20 Sep 2017 09:38:52 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=56400Continue reading »]]>In these169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: #61–Email from MS Office

Category: Email

Sub-category: MS Office, Classroom management, Printing

Q: I was helping a colleague who couldn’t print a document (server problems) and wanted to email it to herself to print at home. She started going online to her web-based email account and I stopped her. There was a quicker method.

A: Click the email tool on the MS Office program toolbar. It automatically opens your email program. An email dialogue box will open. Fill it in and send.

Of course, if you’re in Google Apps, it’s already in the cloud which means you can access it from anywhere—like home

You can also email directly from Adobe Acrobat and Google Apps (though the latter takes a few more steps).

how DO you get students not to steal images from Google and how important is that?

what’s the best advice to students when they face cyberbullying?

how do you know if you are plagiarizing or if you’ve been plagiarized?

We have a new certificate class (with 18 ECUs) called “Building Digital Citizens” that covers thirteen of the most-common topics everyone should know about Digital Citizenship (they’re listed in the video below). Each section has an introduction and then three phases to help you scaffold learning: Introductory, Working on, and Mastered. Work through all phases in each topic at your own pace, in whatever order you’d like. It’s all online, self-directed, with lots of links, videos, and top-notch online resources to help you figure it all out.

]]>57185Great list of Top Education Blogshttp://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/15/great-list-of-top-education-blogs/
Fri, 15 Sep 2017 09:39:14 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=57174Continue reading »]]>10Greatest.comhas a comprehensive list of the top education blogs. It covers everything from grade-level resources to topic-specific. I’m proud to say that Ask a Tech Teacher is the first blog on the list–but we have a lot of august company, everything from Richard Byrne to Alice Keeler.

Here are a few:

ASK A TEACHER

LEARN LEAD GROW

COOL CAT

PBS PARENTS

LARRY FERLAZZO’S ENGAGING PARENTS IN SCHOOL

ED TECH FOR BEGINNERS

CAITLIN TUCKER

TEACHER TECH WITH ALICE KEELER

SCHOLASTIC

FREETECH4TEACHERS

PARENT CUE

THE EDUCATOR

If you’re wondering who to follow to be sure you are up to date on the latest in education, definitely check this list.

]]>5717420 Websites and 3 Posters to Teach Mouse Skillshttp://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/14/mouse-resources/
http://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/14/mouse-resources/#commentsThu, 14 Sep 2017 09:30:07 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=57159Continue reading »]]>Many of my most popular articles are about mouse skills. Every year, tens of thousands of teachers visit Ask a Tech Teacher to find resources for teaching students how to use a mouse. No surprise because using a mouse correctly is one of the most important pre-keyboarding skills. Holding it is not intuitive and if learned wrong, becomes a habit that’s difficult to break.

The earlier posts are still active, but I’ve updated this resource with more websites and posters to assist in starting off your newest computer aficionados.

]]>http://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/14/mouse-resources/feed/11571592017 Teachers Pay Teachers’ July Conference — Overviewhttp://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/13/2017-teachers-pay-teachers-july-conference-overview/
Wed, 13 Sep 2017 09:01:33 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=56555Continue reading »]]>One of the largest online marketplace for teachers is Teachers Pay Teachers. If you haven’t heard of this estore, you are either new to teaching or long since retired. This vibrant educator community hosts teacher-authors who wish to sell their original lessons and ideas to other teachers, district administrators, homeschoolers, and unschoolers. Since its start in 2006 by a former teacher, it’s grown to over 3.4 million teachers buying or selling over 2.7 million education-oriented Pre-K through High School lesson plans, curricula, videos, classroom activities, assessments, books, bulletin board ideas, classroom decorations, interactive notebooks, task cards, Common Core resources, and more. Teacher-authors have earned more than $330 million since TpT opened its doors with about a dozen making over $1 million dollars and nearly 300 earning more than $100,000. There’s no set-up charge, no cost to join, and no annual fee unless you choose to become what’s called a Premium seller.

TpT 2017 Conference Observations

Every year, TpT holds a conference to share ideas with teacher-authors on how to build their stores, develop their platform, and make money off of their passion. It’s more like an Amway convention than an IBM shareholder meeting. Or, if you’re a football fan, think Pete Carroll’s amazing college football success attributed in no small part to his high-energy positive way of motivating players, an approach that earned him the nickname “the poodle” from arch-rival Notre Dame.

This year, I trundled my way up to Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland and the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Ducks, ready to be wowed by the expertise of fellow teachers and eager to make a whole lot of new connections. I wasn’t disappointed. From start to finish, this event was a rowdy affair filled with energy and enthusiasm, networking and new friends. The first day, as we rode up the elevator to the Welcome event, the TPT folks cheered and high fived all of us teacher-authors. Buzzwords like “shout out”, “ecosystem”, “safe space”, “self-publishing”, “data analysis” were part of every conversation. A favorite phrase was “That’s OK”. Rarely was Common Core mentioned and never did politics come up (thank goodness!). Teachers raved about their “unicorn husbands”, unbelievable spouses who did the housework, childcare, and cooking so their entrepreneurial wives (90% of the teachers I saw in attendance were female) could work on their TpT store.

Seminar Overview

Each of the seminars I attended (a handful of roughly five dozen offered) was filled with pithy ideas, how-tos, and problem-solving. Across the board, the presenters were friendly, humorous (I thought some could do stand-up comedy as a second third job), and knowledgeable. They were mostly working teachers sharing marketing and sales advice that succeeded for them.

Seminars I attended included:

using social media to spread the word

building an email list

copyrights

developing a brand

building a platform

taping professional videos

tracking sales

My To Do List

By the end of the three-day conference, I felt equal parts ready to take on the world and overwhelmed at what I had to do to make that happen. Here’s a partial list of the To Do items I hope to get done before next year’s conference:

Set up an Instagram account to share images of a more personal nature but still connected to my products.

Post to Facebook with meaningful information (like education posters or memes) to gain an audience.

Use the logo and colors from my TpT store across all my social media.

About ten more items that barely make sense to me at the moment. I’ll have to unravel them before posting about them.

Overall, I have enough to keep me busy until next year’s conference.

Summary

Teachers Pay Teachers is a disruptive force whose time has come. As educators reject textbooks that are often years out of date, TpT provides quality alternatives from skilled professionals that that are up to date, aligned with many national and state standards, differentiate for student needs, are scalable to class particulars and dynamic in their material and presentation. And customers include more than teachers provisioning their classrooms. About 15% of buyers are administrative personnel buying for an entire grade-level, armed with a purchase order.

In today’s K-12 education ecosystem, most classroom management tools have moved online. This includes typical LMS (Learning Management Systems) functions like homework, classwork, schedules, quizzes, resources, and gradebooks so stakeholders–teachers and students–can access them from any location and any digital device. Because LMSs have a reputation for being complicated to understand and daunting to set up, lite versions that give up some of the robustness in favor of a more pleasant user experience have become popular. The first ‘lite’ option that most educators think of is Google Classroom. It’s easy to use, accessible from all devices, collaborative, and integrates with lots of education apps. You will find yourself most comfortable in the Google Classroom environment if the tools you use are aligned with Google Drive, your browser of choice is Chrome, and your digital device is a Chromebook.

It turns out there are lots of other reasons schools and teachers don’t want to use Google Classroom:

It lacks many features that teachers want in classroom management such as syncing with popular non-Google apps and tools.

If you have an LMS you love, Google Classroom often won’t work well with it because it isn’t well-aligned with industry standards.

It’s only free if you have a G Suite for Education account.

It’s not well-suited if you use Microsoft Office programs.

It doesn’t allow a lot of customization. That makes it simpler to use but less adaptable to unique needs.

It’s too “googlish”. Toolbars and symbols are easy to understand if you’re into Google, not so much if you aren’t.

The biggest for many people: Privacy concerns continue, despite Google’s efforts to put them to bed. If you’re looking for a non-Google Classroom alternative, here are four:

Microsoft is late to the classroom management party but its Microsoft Teams is a worthy consideration. Its name doesn’t scream education though it is the sequel to the since-retired Microsoft Classroom preview. Once set up, the platform works hand-in-hand with OneNote Class Notebooks to provide a digital workspace where teachers can create collaborative classrooms, connect in professional learning communities, communicate with school staff, plan lessons, assign and grade homework, comment on work, and differentiate for student needs. Students can find and share assignments, receive feedback, and collaborate digitally. Overall, it offers similar features to Google Classroom in a different environment.

Free to schools who have Office 365 for Education, it is considered more user-friendly than Google Classroom by some while others disagree. What no one argues is that it works better with Office documents. If your school uses Word, PowerPoint, or Excel on iPads or PCs, this might be a better choice.

Kiddom is a free standards-based classroom management platform designed to help teachers curate individual learning experiences. Its pages are visual and easy-to-understand, intuitive to set up, and agile in their responsiveness to varied student and class needs. With its rich analytic features, teachers can quickly determine how students are doing and where remediation is needed. Because many of the statistics are linked to foundational detail, teachers can quickly dig deeper without having to click around trying to find where that particular data lives.

If you are a Google school, you’ll like that Kiddom integrates with Google Drive. Teachers can share docs, sheets, and forms directly with students without leaving Kiddom’s ecosystem. In fact, with Kiddom, you get everything you love about Google Classroom as well as the features only Kiddom brings to learning such as:

the ability to plan, assess, and analyze via a free library of standards-aligned resources

quick lesson planning using an integrated curriculum planner that can personalize instruction

unlimited possibilities for student ownership as they submit work, track their own progress, and solicit feedback from teachers

Beneylu is a K-8 online learning platform that puts critical classroom applications, resources, activities, and games in a secure online universe that is accessible to parents, teachers, and students. You start with a basic framework and add the tools that you want in your classroom. Classrooms are personalized to student needs with apps teachers download and install. Here are the most common selections:

Of all the LMSs available, none are as flexible, scalable, feature-rich, and affordable as the open-source Moodle. Because it’s platform-agnostic, it has few limitations and can be as close as any on this list to the fully-featured setup of traditional LMSs such as BlackBoard and Canvas. You add exactly what you need via plugins you search for in an extensive library. Besides traditional LMS classroom needs such as gradebooks and lesson planning, Moodle allows you to add:

blogs

forums and chats

podcasts

shared classroom space

quizzes

workshops and online meetings

a database, wiki, or photo gallery

various online webtools that sync with Moodle

Google Apps within Moodle.

email

badges

But this flexibility and scalability comes with a price. Though the basic framework and most of the plugins are free, setup and use can be challenging. In fact, I can attest to that from experience.

***

Classroom management tools vary from fully-featured LMSs to easy-to-set-up, user-friendly alternatives. If I had to pick one from these four that balances rich features with teacher-friendliness, it would be Kiddom. Besides traditional classroom management tools, you get two you don’t find in any of the others: 1) deep analytics to evaluate student progress, and 2) a focus on standards-based teaching that makes it easy to match student success to class goals.

]]>56519We Remember… 9/11http://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/11/we-remember-911-2/
http://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/11/we-remember-911-2/#commentsMon, 11 Sep 2017 09:44:13 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=56789America, we love you.
]]>http://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/11/we-remember-911-2/feed/256789169 Tech Tip #126: 7 Tips to Differentiate with Techhttp://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/08/169-tech-tip-126-7-tips-to-differentiate-with-tech/
http://askatechteacher.com/2017/09/08/169-tech-tip-126-7-tips-to-differentiate-with-tech/#commentsFri, 08 Sep 2017 09:34:17 +0000http://askatechteacher.com/?p=56399Continue reading »]]>In these169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: #126–7 Tips to Differentiate with Tech

Category: Differentiation

Sub-category: Teaching, Pedagogy

Here are seven ways to differentiate instruction every day:

While some students take their time to carefully finish a project as suits their learning style, others slam through the steps looking for ‘what’s next’. Both are fine. Have a lot of authentic activities going on in your classroom so students are encouraged to work at their own pace. Let them self-manage their education. Be clear about your expectations, and then trust them to find their way. Have links on the class internet start page for organic learning like keyboarding practice and sponge websites that tie into subject area inquiry.

Let students communicate ideas with not only text but layout, color, and images. These can be graphic organizers like Venn Diagrams, or an infographic.

Show students how to add pictures, borders, and fonts. Some students will tolerate the words to get to the decorating.

Use online tools like Discovery Education’s Puzzle Maker to review concepts. Move away from rubrics and study guides. Anything that gamifies learning will go down easier with students. They are digital natives so let them learn in a more natural way.

If students aren’t excited by the tools and widgets you offer, let them suggest their own. If they can make the argument for it, let them use it.

Always offer do-overs. I call them ‘Mulligans’. In a differentiated classroom, let students redo an assignment. What if they didn’t understand? Or were sick? How does trying harder defeat education’s goal of learning? With technology, all students do is open their project and continue work based on your feedback. That’s cool. Rest assured: When you offer this in your classroom, most students won’t take you up on it. It’s too outside-the-box. You won’t be deluged with double the work. But, be happy if you are.